Brad Pitt’s film Killing Them Softly finally comes out this Friday. At long last! I’m actually surprised that Brad hasn’t done more work to promote the film, but I suspect we’ll have a bunch of new interviews and photos this week. Surely Brad will leave England (where he’s been stuck doing even more reshoots for World War Z) to promote the film stateside? I’m including promotional photos from the film in this post, as well as some of the cool posters. Here’s the latest trailer for Killing Them Softly – I’m not crazy-excited about this film, but it has a stellar cast. I love that Brad consistently employs Richard Jenkins.

As I said, the press tour has already begun, and there are several new pieces of Brad news for you today. First off, Brad spoke to People Magazine:

While most Americans celebrated Thanksgiving with family on Thursday, Brad Pitt spent his holiday with zombies on the set of World War Z in London.

“I didn’t know it was Thanksgiving until like midday. Until [the] afternoon,” he told PEOPLE in an interview for the coming issue. “When you’re overseas, they don’t celebrate it in England. And [Angelina Jolie] and some of the kids are overseas in Cambodia this week, working on the [The Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation] there,” he said. “It completely escaped me until someone brought me some English pumpkin pie.”

Even though Pitt, 48, went without the traditional turkey and stuffing this year, he didn’t seem to mind, saying, “That’s okay, last year we had a big meal and we don’t normally miss things twice.”

Still, Pitt was certainly into the spirit of the holiday. He put the entire contents of his wallet, $1,100, into the hands of a fundraiser collecting money for the Southampton General Hospital’s neonatal unit, where a friend’s son, Zachary Gallagher, had spent the first nine weeks of his life.

“The fundraiser had finished, and I got a phone call from my best friend, who said, ‘We have had a small donation.’ I thought she was messing about and was going to say, ‘My dad’s given you a fiver’ or something, then she said, ‘It’s from Brad Pitt!’ ” Zachary’s mother, Karley Gallagher, 23, tells PEOPLE.

“He said that he had seen the fundraiser mentioned in the local papers and seen my fliers and thought it was a really great cause and was just sorry he couldn’t have been there,” she adds “The silver lining is that Zachary is home and alive. … To have Brad assist us is more than we could ever have wished for.”

While Pitt, in New York Monday for a special screening of Killing Them Softly, plans to fly back to London on Tuesday to continue filming, the Jolie-Pitt bunch is already focused on the next holiday. Maddox, 11, Pax, 8, Zahara, 7, Shiloh, 6, and 4-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne have already mailed letters to Santa from the village of Littlebourne in rural Kent, England.

The British papers have more quotes from the recipients of Brad’s largesse – you can read another account of it here. Since I know people will yell about it, let me just say two things: one, Brad isn’t the one publicizing his donation, it’s the hospital that’s publicizing, hoping that by mentioning Brad in the press, more money will come in. Two, the size of the donation – yes, Brad could have written a check for a lot more, etc, etc, but I took it as more of a spur of the moment thing, like running into a Salvation Army bell-ringer and whipping out your wallet (which I do all the time during the holidays).

Meanwhile, during an interview with Access Hollywood, Brad was asked about his awful Chanel commericals, and how they seemed custom-built for spoofing. When asked about the spoofs and criticisms, Brad said, “I’ve been overseas, so I’ve been blissfully protected. I haven’t [seen the parodies], but I say absolutely fair play, fair play.” He defended the House of Chanel saying, “I kind of liked it… I respect what they do. They do some really quality things.” But he also said that he wouldn’t be able to identify Chanel No. 5 if he smelled it on the street.

Interesting enough – because he rarely gets questioned about this – he was asked about his on-and-off smoking habit and how his Killing Them Softly character is a smoker. Brad said, “[I’ve quit] several times, I’m really good at it… It’s great, it’s great [to smoke in the movie]…. But you have to know that you’re going to have to quit on the other end and that that ugly day is coming, so you over enjoy it I guess. I very conscious of health now and I want to be around for my kids, I don’t have that drive anymore. I don’t crave it all.” Brad, I love you and everything, but bullsh-t! Every time he proclaims that he’s stopped smoking and he doesn’t crave it, he ends up going back to the cigs. I mean, I feel his pain – it’s so hard to quit and it’s so easy to backslide. But maybe he should just adopt AA-speak about his smoking habits: “One day at a time, man.”

Riana how much money do you tend to carry around with you? I’m not a multi millionaire and so unless I need more for a specific I don’t usually carry anymore than about £10 in my purse and I can tell you now that I wouldn’t give that all to charity. So if you think of how much money Brad actually has, and how much he probably carries around with him (remember that he was on location)I think giving them all the money that he had on him and then if I’m not mistaken getting the crew to give some cash as well really doesn’t make for a sh$$ty donation.

Saw Moneyball on the weekend and I’m definitely in the Brad-gets-better-looking-as-he-ages camp. But I couldn’t help thinking while I was watching him that if a female actor had those lines around her eyes, she’d be hung out to dry by the general public for not aging well. It’s too bad we have such silly double standards.

Funny, I was just thinking the same thing. I was in a department store this morning and they had the big pics of Brad for his Chanel No 5 ad. You could clearly see wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Nothing wrong with that, of course – he is 48 years old, after all. But there is NO way Chanel would allow a woman to appear in one of their ads with visible wrinkles. Even women 10 or 15 years Brad’s junior are photoshopped into some unrecognisably smooth and flawless doll. Yet Brad is allowed to have wrinkles because it gives him ‘character’. Yawn.

Is it odd that I never knew Brad was a smoker? Hm.
Anyway, I think it’s lovely he donated the money to Soton’s neonatal unit. Surprised he was carrying that much money though, I usually get a bit paranoid when I’ve got more than 100 quid on my person. But I suppose he can afford it

Regarding the donation.. he told them that he would make an additional one at a later date. Seriously it’s not like the man doesn’t donate to various causes. And I’m sure he gets asked to donate to everything. He was on the set working, someone went to him and told him about the cause. He gave all the cash he had. How is that a bad thing.

I know, right? I don’t get people who whinge about the size of a donation/s. If he donated massive chunks to every known charity on the planet, he’d no longer be a millionaire, let alone a multimillionaire. He is one person and can only do so much. To give the org the ENTIRE contents of his wallet really speaks very highly of him.

Seriously. Damn#d if you do, damn#d if you don’t~the amount doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters to too many people is being able to criticize other people for whatever actions they take, while hiding safely behind internet anonymity.

I like that it was such a spontaneous donation. One of the things I don’t like about the Brange is that everything is so calculated, that makes them boring to me. Brad just opened his wallet and said ‘Here ya go’, seems refreshing.

awwww, Misnomer…you ask so nicely. It is only my opinion & I mean no offense but, I just don’t think they are genuine. I think that they carefully plot & promote their brand behind the guise of humanitarianism. I feel no sincerity. Everything is a show. I just don’t buy their shtick. No hate here…I just don’t buy it.

Why the hostility Spinner? I was being congenial to you. Of course you’re not ‘obligated’ to answer anything, but my post wasn’t political. Mandela and the UN think highly of her, and they’d see their fair share of fakes, they think she is genuine and have the highest regard for her. Do you think you know more than them, meaning do you think they are stupid?

Also, I saw the AH interview yesterday and he seemed genuinely baffled at the mockery of the Chanel ad. When he said “I thought it was good,” I think he meant it and was probably too close to it to realize how pretentious and silly it would come off.

Nowhere near as much as Aniston who hides behind a fake persona because her “sweetheart” IMAGE is so important to her. Even Huvane works overtime for her. The Jolie Pitts don’t have a publicist. Again, how ironic. Trust this, Aniston is far more aware of her public image, as Huvane proves, than Angelina and Brad.

I respect that JP family donates continuously, I don’t care how “much” it is in each case.
We have an yearly limit at home and donate to causes we can identify closely with. Must be nice not to have to worry about money and spend where’s needed.

Yet you think Aniston is ‘real’? A woman who is passive-aggressive and puts out an image of being a sweetheart, but is cruel, cold, calculated and manipulative and plots attacks with Handler? Its ironic that you could be so blind. Its such hypocrisy and so ironic. If anyone is phony, Aniston is. She is phonier than a 3 dollar bill. Just look at her behavior. There is nothing genuine about her. She hides behind a facade. And manipulates people like spinner who believes the facade. An Aniston defender talking about ‘genuine’ and ‘plots’. Oh the irony. The hypocrisy. Look in the mirror, spinner. You defend a phony vindictive bitch who has plotted for 8 years to ruin a woman’s life while hiding behind a veneer of respectability for the gullible public and carefully couching her words so what she is doing isn’t obvious to the starstruck plebs. You are so starstruck by her fame, you truly can’t see through her. For goodness sake, wake up. Aniston is the biggest non-genuine celeb there is. Wake up.

That is true. Jennifer Aniston does make the JPs look like amateurs when it comes to non genuine. Whatever positives there are about Jennifer, she is a very fake person who has to faces. Jennifer runs rings around the JPs any day on manipulation and being a phony. There aren’t many in Hollywood who are as fake and calculated as her.

I feel so bad this time of year when the bell ringers are out because I NEVER carry cash anymore. I pay for everything with my debit card. I know some bell ringers have debit card swipes now (although I haven’t encountered one) but I miss being able to just dump a pocketful of change into the bucket.

Maybe that’s all they needed to reach their quota. Maybe that’s how much cash he had on him. Either way, he gives all the time and of his own accord. Good for him. I think we forget that all these multimillionaires have ‘millions’ tied up in things. As in, not all liquid cash.

Long time lurker first time poster hello! Just HAD to add my irrelevant comment that Brad was filming in my home town Dorset! It’s not everyday that our sleepy seaside county is associated with a Hollywood A lister! £700 doesn’t seem like a lot but by the lady’s story it seems like he literally emptied whatever was in his pocket and gave it away. Very kind no matter what your opinion of Brad is!

Being that it was a spontaneous donation then it was nice. Being that he is a multi-millionaire, he could have written an check for a few grand and it would have been a little classier. How long would that have taken? All of 1 minute? But maybe he wrote a check later and mailed it to them, or had someone drop it off. We don’t know. It’s not that much money but its better than nothing I guess…

I’m sorry. He “forgot” Thanksgiving? I am not a Brangelina hater or a Jennifer Aniston supporter )dislike them all Haha), but sorry, not buying that. Like his Mom wouldn’t of called him to ask about his plans? Please what Mom doesn’t. And if he did forget cuz “when you’re in another country….blah blah blah) that is pure crap. You are am American no matter where yous are. Oh. Wait. Wasn’t he one the people that said if Bush was reelected he was moving out of the USA? HU. Lost all respect then.

Brad never said that. Just like Angie never said they didn’t believe in Thanks giving or the other million or so tabloid lies.

and Thanksgiving is not a “holy” holiday. I’m sure if you are working it could slip your mind. Besides why is it such a big deal. Talk to the people at Walmart or such and yeah you work. There were millions of people working. And since the family was in London while he was working I guess his family already knew their plans. Jon Voight said that the family would not be in the states and he wouldn’t be seeing them for Thanksgiving. I’m sure he knew that before the day.

I don’t believe everything celebs say. but man why is it always necessary to nic pick the smallest things and make them so HUGH.

oh yeah because thanksgiving is sooo sacred that the next day (or a couple hours later) after giving thanks for what you already have, people stampede out for black friday shopping and acquire more goods in the process injuring others and get into aggressive fights that make the news :/